Dr Safdar Ali Shah is a poet, author, research scholar and linguist. He has a number of books to his credit some of which are Khabaan di Mutyaar (Punjabi poetry), Quest for Peace, Colonialism, English and Punjabi, The Sikh Heritage of Pakistan (co-author), The Hindu Heritage of Pakistan (co-author), The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan (co-author) and Sufi Poetry of Pakistan.

Dr Shah currently works at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, as Director Publishing and Student Affairs. He has an abiding interest in the Punjabi language and literature. “Punjabi Grammar”, his latest book, published by his university from Islamabad, had added to his already impressive repertoire. It fulfills the requirements of those who are in any way keen to understand and learn Punjabi as everyday speech and vehicle of creative expression. It’s neither the first book on Punjabi grammar nor the last. But it’s highly relevant because it deals with the grammatical structure as well as with the brief history and literature of the language.

“This book not only provides the details on the structure of the language, but also introduces the readers to some of the history and richness of the literature and culture that finds its strength in the ‘folk-character’ of Punjabi to which Dr Shah refers,” writes Lars Dyrud, the Principal Researcher, Sociolinguistic Survey of Punjabi, Pakistan (published 2011), Northland Community and Technical College, Minnesota, USA, in the blurb.

Dr Shah’s book which addresses the contemporary needs of language learning deserves such an accolade. His book seems accessible to both scholar and lay reader. He elucidates the hazy facets of the language structure and related issues in a lucid manner. The book is divided into different chapters in order to deal with diverse aspects of the language such as phonology, morphology and syntax which contain hidden in their innards the baffling secrets of stable but imperceptibly changing dynamics of incredibly complex abstract construct called language.

Language has contradictory nature; it can be as simple as breathing and it can be as difficult as looking for a needle in a haystack. Highly illuminating in fact is Dr Shah’s scholarly and researched introduction which takes a look at the trajectory of Punjab’s civilisation march. In order to understand the origins and development of the Punjabi language, one needs to know the complex evolution of Punjab’s society spanning over thousands of years. Any effort to fully analyse the highly stratified, layered and caste ridden society of the subcontinent will flounder if we ignore deliberately or out of ignorance the open secrets of Harappa civilisation which visibly underpins what is generally referred to as Indian civilisation. It’s in fact more of Pakistan’s heritage than that of contemporary India.

The core of a language cannot be discovered without discovering its speakers, Dr Shah rightly stresses. He explains briefly the ancient history of Punjab in which lie hidden the roots of its language. As to the origin of the Punjabi, three theories are prevalent: 1) it evolved from spoken Sanskrit 2) It sprang from the Vedic language 3) It predates Vedic and classical Sanskrit. It is indigenous language of Harappa and is organically linked to the group of Munda and Dravidian languages.

First two theories have been debunked by serious linguists and historians of the language in the aftermath of ample archeological evidence provided by excavations done on the Harappan sites. The vocabulary that the Punjabi language shares with the Vedic language and classical Sanskrit in no way proves that they gave birth to it because “the difficulty is that Sanskrit does not share a common syntax with these (so-called Indo-Aryan) languages,” writes Dr Shah.

He agrees with Asif Khan, Ainul Haq Faridkoti and others who with lot of painstaking research proved the non-Aryan origins of Punjabi.

Dr Safdar Shah has done a commendable job as his ‘Punjabi Grammar’ not only provides the readers with effective tools for learning Punjabi but also offers a valuable insight into an otherwise umbra filled cultural world of contemporary Punjab.

“Sattay Khairan”, a small book of stories for children, written and illustrated by Nuzhat Abbas, has been published by Punjab Lok Lehar, Sahiwal. Lok Lehar, headed by Qaswar Mubarak Butt, is a cultural body dedicated to promoting the Punjabi language, literature and culture.

Oxford-based Nuzhat Abbas is a well-known figure. She is a writer, vocalist and cultural activist. Her specialisation is child education in mother language. She is actively involved in helping expat parents acquire printed and audio-visual material so that they could teach their children Punjabi at home. It is now universally acknowledged (though not in Pakistan, especially in Punjab) that mother tongue plays a crucial role in developing a child’s communication skills and mental growth at an early age. It shapes his/her identity and creates sense of belonging. The book has an interesting format; the stories in Punjabi are printed in two scripts, Nastaliq (derived from Arabic) and Shahmukhi (derived from Landay) along with their English translation.

Gurmukhi part has been done by Sukhdev Sidhu and English translation is by Pratima Bhatia Mitchell. It caters to a range of diverse needs of Punjabi community. This small lovely book can be a source of delight for our children if we want them to know who we are and what is the wisdom bequeathed to us by our forefathers. Sattay Khairan should be on your child’s table. – soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2017